Candidate Survey Builds Right to Work Strength

Program Has Proven to Be Effective in All Political Climates

In the months leading up to November’s general elections, top union bosses and their political strategists predicted again and again that their electioneering machine would ultimately install a Big Labor politician, probably New York Democrat Charles Schumer, as the next U.S. Senate majority leader.

Union spokesmen also indicated there was a good chance one of their lapdog politicians would take over as speaker of the U.S. House.

Of course, union bosses’ confident predictions came to naught on Election Day, as confident predictions often do.

And part of the reason why Big Labor’s power grab failed is the National Right to Work Committee’s federal Survey 2016.

The Committee’s survey program consistently achieves remarkable results simply by mobilizing citizens to contact their candidates regarding their stands on the compulsory-unionism issue.

As campaign 2016 drew to a close, union kingpins calculated that their forced dues-funded phone banks and get-out-the-vote drives, along with public dismay over various offensive remarks made by the GOP presidential nominee over the years, would help Big Labor congressional candidates win a host of close races.

But throughout October and the first week of November, the Committee’s federal candidate survey program ensured that politicians who had hoped their pro-forced-unionism agenda would remain in the background were held accountable.

To mobilize Right to Work supporters, the Committee distributed a total of roughly 6.4 million federal Survey 2016 “information packets” through the U.S. Postal Service.

Packets, E-Mails and Ads Let Pro-Right to Work Citizens Know Where Candidates Stood

Above and beyond that, Survey 2016 had a massive Internet component, including approximately 2.4 million e-mails transmitted in early November. All this plus targeted multi-media advertising.

The packets, e-mails and ads let pro-Right to Work citizens know where their candidates stood on compulsory unionism. And most of the packets were mailed out during the fall election-campaign season to specifically targeted states and districts across the country.

In a year in which the political climate seemed to be favorable for Big Labor-backed congressional candidates, the survey program strongly encouraged candidates to stand up for the Right to Work.

In the end, opponents of compulsory unionism were able to retain operational control over the U.S. House and Senate.

The unsuccessful campaign of Virginia real estate executive LuAnn Bennett for her state’s 10th Congressional District, a jurisdiction that includes three entire counties, portions of two others, and three independent cities, helps illustrate why.

During the final weeks of her House campaign, the Committee called public attention to the fact that Ms. Bennett was gratefully accepting hefty campaign support from Big Labor even as she refused to say how she would vote on Right to Work-related legislation.

As part of its Survey 2016 program, the Committee sent a total of roughly 56,000 pieces of Right to Work surface mail alone to households in the 10th District.

After being mobilized by the Committee, thousands of citizens asked Ms. Bennett to take a clear stand against forced unionism. She never complied.

Apparently, she calculated that Donald Trump’s weakness in Northern Virginia would in itself bring down the pro-Right to Work GOP incumbent she was challenging, Barbara Comstock.

The Trump-Pence ticket did end up losing Northern Virginia, where the 10th District is located, badly. But Ms. Comstock, a cosponsor of federal forced-dues repeal, defeated Ms. Bennett by roughly 25,000 votes.

“The sole purpose of the survey program is to highlight candidates’ positions and voting records on Right to Work and to mobilize freedom-loving citizens to lobby the candidates,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“Candidates who don’t like the public hearing about their close ties to Big Labor special interests can always distance themselves from union kingpins and pledge to support Right to Work in the future.